What do lyrics mean to you?

larryace said:
To me, the lyrics are #1

In my mind, the lyric sets the feel of the song. I don't want to hear a sad song played happy. I don't want to hear happy songs played sad.

I look at the overall feel of the song first, through the lyrics. Then I make a judgement call on how to play it. I want my playing to match the feel of the song, whatever that feel is.
Click to expand...
Pretty much.

Most of my favorite bands are my favorite bands because they have great lyrics.

Sure, some songs/bands I love have dumb lyrics. And yes, there are some instrumental songs I really like.

But lyrics have always been my main attraction to music. Early U2, the Who (Tommy and Quadrophenia), Rush, etc drew me in on lyrics.

Lyrics are #1, or at least #1b compared to a good melody.
 
To me, lyrics can be very important to a song. The first thing that is gonna get me, tho, is the hook. I suppose its a combination of my personality, my drumming background, and my years of working in the radio biz...the hook is the first thing that will grab me. You got a hook, you have my attention!

And of course there are countless examples of songs that are tremendously catchy, but the lyrics aren't all that deep. I don't enjoy them any less than a song with great lyrics, nor vice versa. I can really appreciate songs that are well written lyrically, or the catchy song, equally.

I find that I get caught up in trying to put too much lyrically in the songs that I try to write. That's when I truly appreciate the genius in song writing, getting the point across efficiently, using the right amount of words, not over doing it.

The hook usually gets me, but the lyrics stay with me.
 
I don’t even hear words when I listen to a song. The singer is just another instrument. I might pick out a few words here and there in the chorus but that’s it. I have to really concentrate and block everything else out to pick out lyrics to the point that the sounds being made make phrases and have any meaning.
 
Lyrics, for me, stop being separate from the music once it becomes 'a song'.

The rhyming thing, when listening to more than just the last phoneme of a line, can give rhythmic structure when designing the songs form or even relationship between pitches.

Meaning is where things get funky...I have found myself using nonsense words that are between the sound of two other words that i dont want to spend the effort to select between(or, where I like the mening both words convey especially in juxtaposition)...and I find enjoyment(hmmm...maybe 'accepting existence of'?) concepts I truly do not believe or are even disgusted at( e.g. "Every Breath You Take")...but lyrics that dont subjectively work with the music break the song for me...and this subjectivity is why GPT-3 like stat systems will never fulfill what a human can, in my opinion...you need to feel the gut punch of the bridge drop to understand the lyric that might work best in relation to your breadth of experience...its not just the words themselves but your personal history with them.

Lyrics are another artificially distinguished component of a song to me.(like the artificial distinction between 'playing time' and a 'fill')
 
Last edited:
DrumDoug said:
I don’t even hear words when I listen to a song. The singer is just another instrument. I might pick out a few words here and there in the chorus but that’s it.
Click to expand...

Same here. There’s lots of songs I’ve loved for decades, but aside from maybe a few words of the hook line, I have no clue about the lyrics.

I have a medium-sized collection of albums in the (poorly-named) “world music” genre, and they’re in Arabic, Urdu, ancient Chinese dialects, French, Cree, and many other languages. If I was a lyrics keener, it seems likely that I would never have heard shedloads of great music.

I’ve heard drummers that I hugely respect talk about how they want to know all the lyrics before recording the drum track. I want to believe that that results in better tracks, but given that a large proportion of songs we know and love had their lyrics written AFTER the instruments were recorded, I have my doubts about how much that matters.

I don’t think it’s good or bad to focus on lyrics. You do you. But I am very interested in hearing where other drummers fall on this question.
 
As a former high school English teacher who taught poetry, lyrics are very important to me. That is the main reason I used to like Rush and Jethro Tull. To me all music is spiritual, in one way or another. Peace and goodwill.
 
I worked with a guitarist/producer who always wanted me to lay down studio drum tracks to songs before the lyrics were written. I told him I did not like to do it that way, because the drum parts might drastically change once the lyrics are added. The mood, the lyrical cadence, and the words themselves all factor into how I approach creating drum parts. For example, one of my previous bands had a song called "Opportunity Knocks," and I found the perfect spot for a couple snare hits, which sounded like knocking, in the chorus after the word "knocks." The band loved it.

In country music, it's ALL about the lyrics. I try to never get in the way of them.

So yes, I don't like to create without lyrics. But as a casual listener, I don't hear the lyrics first. I naturally hear the drums/groove, then the lyrics.
 
Last edited:
The chords are less than interesting. The arrangement is crude. The lyrics come across like written by a 12 year old. The piano sounds as if the engineer has a severe hearing loss at around 6kHz. My fellow dull countrymen are clapping on each and every beat. The band at the end sounds cheesy AF.

And yet every time i hear this song it brings tears to my eyes.

Just because of the lyrics.


Lyrics with translation
 
Lyrics don't matter to me as long as they're not so bad (cheesy, lame, etc) that I can't ignore it. Example, as much as I like some of FFDP's music, the lyrics sound like a pissed off 13 year old wrote them. Can't listen.

I also don't listen to songs with lyrics that are depressing to me personally, especially now having lost my parents.

Beyond that, don't care. What matters is the voice.
 
Lyrics mean a lot.


 
In the 60's, lyrics became very important, as rock 'n roll grew up and moved away from the "Be Bop A Lula" lyrical nonsense of the 50's, and became socially conscious, taking on thorny subjects like Viet Nam, racism, hard drugs, poverty and politics. Don't get me wrong; I like Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly and a lot of the original rockabilly stuff just fine, but a lot of 50's lyrics were either shallow or silly, because record companies purposely fed teenagers silly musical shit. The Beatles had a big hand in changing that.

Lyrics are an integral part of the song. I listen to them. Period. As a drummer, I need to know what to do behind the singer at all times. Mostly, stay out of his or her way!
 
Last edited:
heartbeat said:
I worked with a guitarist/producer who always wanted me to lay down studio drum tracks to songs before the lyrics were written. I told him I did not like to do it that way, because the drum parts might drastically change once the lyrics are added. The mood, the lyrical cadence, and the words themselves all factor into how I approach creating drum parts. For example, one of my previous bands had a song called "Opportunity Knocks," and I found the perfect spot for a couple snare hits, which sounded like knocking, in the chorus after the word "knocks." The band loved it.

In country music, it's ALL about the lyrics. I try to never get in the way of them.

So yes, I don't like to create without lyrics. But as a casual listener, I don't hear the lyrics first. I naturally hear the drums/groove, then the lyrics.
Click to expand...
We are the SFX, we can put out emotion much like the vocalist; we can make or break the feeling of the song. I may have became more aware being a songwriter.
 
there are albums that I have had for 30+ years that I can play every drum and bass part to...but couldn't tell you anything the singer is saying

lyrics are usually the last thing I notice....some punk stuff I listen to is for the words though...stuff where the music is generally not that "deep"

Iron Maiden, Rush and Queensryche are the bands I would give time to the lyrics in some of the first listens
 
I don’t place importance on any one thing over another. It’s all important.
 
larryace said:
In my mind, the lyric sets the feel of the song. I don't want to hear a sad song played happy. I don't want to hear happy songs played sad.
Click to expand...
Many, many of my favorite songs are those where the lyrics would indicate a sad song but the music is deceptively peppy. "Allentown" by Billy Joel and "Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen are two obvious examples that leap to mind. I find the juxtaposition can be absolutely spine-tingling.

BobC said:
In the 60's, lyrics became very important, as rock 'n roll grew up and moved away from the "Be Bop A Lula" lyrical nonsense of the 50's, and became socially conscious, taking on thorny subjects like Viet Nam, racism, hard drugs, poverty and politics. Don't get me wrong; I like Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly and a lot of the original rockabilly stuff just fine, but a lot of 50's lyrics were either shallow or silly, because record companies purposely fed teenagers silly musical shit. The Beatles had a big hand in changing that.
Click to expand...

Here's a song I love by a band I like. I'd never heard a note of their music or even heard of the group before someone on a blog I sometimes read embedded the video. I clicked play and I swear I don't think it took two full measures before I thought, "I'm not sure I've ever heard a song in my entire life I've loved more." It was that deep and that immediate. 15 years later and I still feel nearly the same.


And after hearing it I don't know how many dozens of times, I still don't know almost any of the lyrics, and the one line I do know—"I saw you on bus 15"—is fine but isn't exactly "The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place" or "He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight train moving with a simple twist of fate."

The Beatles are far and away my favorite band and Springsteen my favorite solo artist, followed by Bob Dylan, with the likes of Neil Young, Suzanne Vega, Jackson Browne, Peter Gabriel, Paul Westerberg, Elliott Smith and other such outstanding writers of lyrics not far behind. And yet lyrics are far, far, far below melody, for me, when it comes to the importance and impact of a song. John Lennon himself—obviously one of the great songwriters of all time and someone (nearly) as responsible as anyone for the leap in sophistication rock songwriting took in the 60s—said

"There is nothing conceptually better than rock and roll. No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones have ever improved on 'Whole Lot of Shaking' for my money."
Click to expand...

And Peter Gabriel—who, again, has a pretty impressive CV—once said

"There have been many great songs which have had really appalling lyrics, but there have been no great songs which have had appalling music."
Click to expand...

So. For me, if a song has great lyrics, that's awesome. That's a beautiful bonus, and makes a song that much better. And if a song has truly terrible lyrics, well, it almost doesn't matter how good the words are. But in general I just need words that are good enough not to ruin it. Anything over that is gravy.

"A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom" or "da-doo-ron-ron-ron" or "sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-tee-da" or "de-do-do-do-de-da-da-da" or, for that matter, "hello, hello, hello, how low." There are some things that regular words are not capable of quite capturing, and sometimes words or even nonsense syllables mean so much more than they seem.

 
GretschedHive said:
"A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom" or "da-doo-ron-ron-ron" or "sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-tee-da" or "de-do-do-do-de-da-da-da" or, for that matter, "hello, hello, hello, how low." There are some things that regular words are not capable of quite capturing, and sometimes words or even nonsense syllables mean so much more than they seem.

Click to expand...
Sigur ros is a testament to that. Half of their lyrics are made up and the rest are in icelandic and its some of the most emotional music I've ever heard.

 
Moejo said:
Where do they sit in the importance factor of a well written song? For me personally, they sit dead last in importance. I dont pay much attention to the "meaning" or "story" a lyricist is trying to tell, but they seem to get a good majority of credit when it comes to the rights. The lyrics definitely dont make me bob my head, or "shake a tail feather" so to speak. I never find myself saying "what a story". Its always "what a sweet riff" "this melody is great" "bass player and drummer are groovin" "man that vocalist can sing", "harmonies are great".
Click to expand...
I can prove to you that lyrics are not important to "most people".
"Every Breadth You Take" by The Police is one of the most popular wedding songs in all of the English speaking countries in the world.
Sting has gone on record saying people come up to him constantly thanking him for their wedding song.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top